


I Need Somebody

by FatalViolet520



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Chan retreats into himself at the beginning, Mentions of Anxiety, Reference to Depression, a dedication!!!, also i fucked up the timeline royally i apologise, but it gets better!!!, disclaimer: i hate angst, implied depression, lots of references to mental illnesses, open ending woochan, reference to anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 16:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16178456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatalViolet520/pseuds/FatalViolet520
Summary: Chan has been saying he's fine for too long.Woojin listens.They find they're stronger together, even if it's not a cure.





	I Need Somebody

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brokenshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenshoes/gifts).



> this is rated teens and up bc well yea non-explicit reference to depression and anxiety. also chan has insomnia. i also hate the summary but you know what i give exactly zero (0) fucks
> 
> moving on!! this is for my lovely baby @stay-grandma on tumblr!! happy belated birthday babe, i love you!! i also hope you like this uhhhhhh don't be disappointed please *hugs you* i hope everyone enjoys this! title and inspiration taken from Day6's 'I Need Somebody', which is @stay-grandma's favourite song!! (psst if anyone wants to be a lovely anon for her!! she's really cute!!) 
> 
> i hope you enjoy this~~ it was pretty difficult for me to write bc uh ;; personal experience but!! i hope it's okay!!

 

_Among all the people surrounding me_

_Why am I alone?_

 

_As I am keeping my silence_

_I’ve let everyone go_

 

_Anyone who can accept me?_

_Is anyone here?_

 

_Come to me, without a sound_

_Hold me, without a reason_

 

_I need someone right now_

 

* * *

 

  
The nights have never been kind to Chan. They are black pony of his days. The dark sky burns too brightly into his eyes and he doesn’t even know if his eyes are open or not.  He doesn’t see anything, but his mind’s eye flashes quickly, each flash a scenario of times he wants to erase from his memories. It brings back emotions he thought he left behind, and the same paradox of emptiness and pain starts creeping back on him, and soon he can’t think of anything else but the night.

 

Nights where the sky fades away in his vision and the stars are replaced by the blank, glowing screen of his phone and the moon by his flickering night light; nights where the buzz of the too quiet fills his ears and becomes too loud; nights where he can taste desperation on his tongue and he’s too small in a world that’s too big for him to feel safe.

 

But tonight is especially hard.

 

Chan feels alone and - perhaps he is. The dark night doesn’t waver outside his window and he feels isolated even though his phone is in hand; it feels like it’s a thousand miles away. He stares out the window, eyes unseeing even though the sky glimmers and shines. They wax a story Chan doesn’t want to hear. It’s a story of beauty and happiness and Chan is none of those things.

 

The stars are for those who can see. Not for those who want to see.

 

Yet Chan wants. He wants to with all his heart. Wants to see the stars and the moon and the night and everything that he’s been told is beautiful but - he _can’t_ because he’s been up too many times for too long. The beauty of the night pales into insignificance when there’s a storm raging in his mind and nothing translates out to the blank screen of his laptop or the messy music sheets on his desk.

 

Sleeping well is a luxury Chan will never have. Instead, he fills his sleepless nights with songs that no one will ever listen to. Songs that are too painful to be played out; too raw to be used in a showcase; too personal to ever give out for the artists he works with. He lives like that - _has_ lived like that for the past four years - and it’s getting too much.

 

_Too much pain and not enough happiness._

 

He can’t write happy things as easily as before, can’t create chords that are light-hearted, can’t seem to think of melodies that are euphoria and calmness and happiness. Hell, he can’t even write anymore. There’s nothing left in the emptiness that he calls himself, and he never knew it could hurt so much.

 

_Too much being alone._

 

His phone slips from his hand and onto his desk, the loud clang muffled to his ears. His friends are a world away. A world where he doesn’t belong, doesn’t have a key too, doesn’t even know of. Everything fades out as the pain comes back, strong and sharp and Chan can’t think of anything else.

 

_Everything is too much._

 

Chan is still human, and there’s only so much he can do. He stays quiet, because he doesn’t want to feel like trouble. Somehow, no one notices. So he becomes quieter, and quieter, and now it’s been weeks since he’s been out of his apartment at all, has hardly talked to his newly moved in flatmate, and he can’t seem to care much for anything. He curls up into himself, mouth biting hard on his pillowcase and the tears start flowing themselves.

 

_It’s all too much._

 

(And still, no one notices, he thinks. Then he doesn’t think anymore, because it hurts.)

 

* * *

 

Kim Woojin is new to this area of Seoul. Sure, he’s been living in Seoul since his university years, but now he’s a music teacher and just freshly transferred to a new branch for the music school he works for. Though he’s gotten to know his neighbourhood, where the grocery store is and where he can get food, he hasn’t even gotten to know his flatmate at all, funnily enough. This apartment was one of the ones advertising for a roommate, and while he remembers the advertisement saying his flatmate’s name was Chan, the guy had never really introduced himself, just smiling vaguely before shutting himself away.

 

For a few months, Woojin just figured the guy was shy, or maybe he was busy, but since Chan would frequently walk in and out, sometimes cooking, sometimes cleaning, Woojin never really bothered, and their acquaintance status remained where it was, stagnant. But for the past month or so, he hadn’t seen Chan emerge from his bedroom. He had tried to knock and ask for him, but there was no answer; any food he left outside the door remained mostly untouched.

 

The usual sounds that Chan makes - the sudden, loud blaring of a beat or a backing track, or the frequent piano scores - have decreased slowly, and Woojin hasn’t heard them in days. The noises that once bothered him are now the usual background sounds to his days and the nagging feeling that something is wrong bites at him once again in full force.

 

Woojin is worried. More worried than he imagined, because he must have gotten used to Chan’s presence around him one day and now that Chan has retreated he doesn’t really know what to do.

 

It’s a Sunday, and usually he would lounge around in their living room, reading, or transposing music pieces to teach to his students for the weekdays. But today is the fifth day that Chan remains silent, and Woojin is getting anxious. He’s staring at his music sheets, frowning slightly and not at all concentrating on them, instead trying to recall something.

 

Reaching over the arm of the sofa, Woojin grabs his guitar and pushes his music sheets away from the coffee table, shoving them hurriedly back into his file - then presses his fingers on the strings and strains his memory to play a chord sequence he knows so well it might as well be his own.

 

Of all the songs that Woojin had inadvertently overheard (it’s not his fault the walls are thin, is it?), it was always the same melody that Chan would play every now and then, a simple sequence repeating four bars before segueing into a minor key that was as simple as before but twice as haunting. The more times Woojin heard it, the more painful it would get, even though the melody never changed.

 

Woojin stumbles when he plays the sequence, chords not sounding right and it takes a few tries to get the sequence down, and then he’s playing it, the same song Chan would play. On his acoustic guitar, it sounds a little more melancholic, a little more emotional than it is painful.

 

It takes him playing for half an hour, simply making up lyrics to the melody as words come to his mind, before there’s a small _bang_ that sounds from Chan’s room. It sounds awfully like Chan knocked into his desk or bookshelf, and Woojin resists the urge to barge in there to check on Chan, instead continuing to play the song.

 

Woojin’s fingertips are a little more calloused that night, but it’s worth it.

 

(And somehow, without even knowing it, Woojin has become Chan’s sign. A sign for - living? Hoping? Chan doesn’t know, but what he does know is someone is listening and - and that’s all he needs.)

 

Chan doesn’t come out that night. Nor does he come out for the next week, but Woojin continues to play, each time louder, and each time he sings softly, whatever lyrics that first came to his mind now fleshed into lyrics that still change with every rendition of the song. The soft chords of Woojin’s guitar becomes natural, filling the emptiness left when Chan left.

 

Exactly two weeks passes, and it’s Sunday once again. Woojin comes home after an extra class to a scene he didn’t think would arrive yet. A cleaned kitchen, the sandwiches he left outside Chan’s room gone - and Chan’s door is left ajar. Woojin’s worry abates with such a strong wave that he feels weak-kneed. Still, he sits down and plays the song again after he steadies himself, this time his words clearly audible to Chan, who feels human for the first time in weeks.

 

Chan doesn’t know why he left his door open. Maybe it’s because he wants to hear Woojin singing, or maybe this is his way of saying _Thank you for being there_. He doesn’t know, frankly.

 

“ _When your unseen scars hurt you_ ,” Chan hears, then really listens, Woojin’s lyrics to his song not feeling foreign at all, “ _Remember that you’ve survived them_.” Does Woojin know what he’s going through? “ _When you have a bad day, remember that you’ve survived them before_.” Perhaps it doesn’t matter if Woojin knows, but he understands, and he’s listened to Chan.

 

Chan stands up from his desk, papers scrawled with lyrics he’s been reviewing again and again endlessly, and walks towards his open door, hesitating. The gap of the door is a bridge that he can’t cross. Not now.

 

“ _You are a constellation of your own making, made of iron and stardust_ ,” Woojin’s voice is even clearer now, both calming and powerful simultaneously, and Chan doesn’t want to cry but - “ _It’s always hard to love yourself, but we’re made to love ourselves first_.” The words stay in his head long after Woojin stops singing them. They are the first words to stick in his head that don’t hurt.

 

Chan cries behind a closed door that night. Everything hurts less after he cries, and he feels a bit more like he’s living, and though he takes most of the night to fall asleep, his mind is clearer. He still can’t write anything for the artists he works with, he’s in danger of being let go as a producer, but for the first time in ages - ‘ _I’ll be okay_ ,’ Chan thinks fervently, ‘ _I’ll be okay_.’

 

It’s like he’s had hope returned to him, and it’s not just because Woojin was there.

 

* * *

 

Everything feels like a lie when he wakes up in the morning. Chan wakes up to a ringing headache, several urgent emails that summon him to the company he’s working for even though he works from home, and whatever hope he felt last night has diminished in one fell swoop. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he pulls his fingers through his hair, feeling the day’s pressures sinking down onto him, and he resists the urge to lose it right there and then.

 

Who is he? What’s his worth? Would anyone care if he disappeared? The same questions revolve around his head, battering at him, and he feels more lost than he’s ever felt. The rising sense of anxiety for - what? What’s there to be anxious for? - _something_ rises in him like a tide that won’t retreat and he’s on the verge of panicking.

 

Clasping a hand over his mouth, he takes a few deep breaths, trying to concentrate on the window frame. It takes him a while before he feels remotely close to normal again, though oddly dulled.

 

Trudging out from his room, it’s quiet, as usual - it’s around nine, and Woojin, as far he knows, leaves for work at half past seven. Chan’s so out of it that he doesn’t notice there’s already brewed coffee sitting in the jug, waiting for him, and when he _does_ snap out of it, he stares at it, baffled and momentarily freed of any concerns.

 

“What,” Chan hisses under his breath, “Who - oh.” He says, breath leaving him. There’s a sticky note on the jug, and all it says is _Have a nice day, I made you some coffee!_ with a little smiley face, and Chan sinks down onto the floor, scrubbing at his eyes furiously. “It’s too early for a mental breakdown,” He grumbles to himself, but his eyes are still stubbornly wet and it’s such a small gesture but Chan is so thankful.

 

Woojin won’t know that Chan stayed on the floor that way for a solid fifteen minutes, or that just making him the coffee had pulled Chan through his whole day. Woojin won’t know that he had convinced Chan to stay one more day, and to see tomorrow’s sunrise. He won’t know all that.

 

However, Woojin _does_ know that he comes home to soft piano echoing throughout the apartment, the melody one that he knows far too well. It’s his own simple composition, something he teaches to the intermediate students in his class, but Chan has decorated it, the melody a little prettier but also a little more melancholic. He stands in the living room for a while, looking lost, but as he stands there, a wave of emotion comes over him - and he’s not entirely sure what the emotions consist of.

 

Worry? Concern? Whatever it is, it stops eating at his insides and softens as the song stretches longer and longer into the silence.

 

He doesn’t know, but the emotion he feels when he plays his guitar to accompany Chan’s piano, and they become a duet in two rooms, calling and answering with the melodies they come up with - that emotion… Woojin supposes he could call it relief.

 

Chan playing the piano doesn’t become a common occurrence, and it’s more often that Woojin comes home to dead silence; a loud buzz that starts to fill his ears and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the overflowing feeling he gets in his chest as he wonders if Chan is okay. There are thoughts churning through his head, hundreds of scenarios whirling through his mind in seconds, and he’s on the verge of moving forward to knock on Chan’s bedroom door -

 

The door opens. “Hello,” Chan says softly and catching Woojin’s gaze, nodding his head and drifting towards the kitchen.

 

Woojin doesn’t stare. “Hi,” He says, like it isn’t the first thing they’ve said to each other for weeks.

 

“How was your day?” Chan asks, voice barely audible over the beeps of the microwave as it counts down three minutes.

 

“Sa - There was a new student today,” Woojin says, putting his guitar down, “She’s a beginner, but she’s learning well. How - How was yours?”

 

Chan seems to hesitate, the timer on the microwave now displaying there’s hardly a minute left. “It - Well, I’ve been having some trouble writing songs,” He admits, glancing briefly at Woojin, “I can’t write anything suitable for an artist who’s working with me.” The timer goes off and Chan takes the prepackaged meal out, picking at it with a slightly glum air.

 

Woojin can’t remember the last time he saw Chan eating.

 

“I - Can I listen to you singing?” Chan asks abruptly, breaking the silence that was freezing between them, and the sudden start of the running tap fills the remainder of the quiet.

 

 _Anything for you_ , is the first thought that occurs to Woojin, but he doesn’t say them. He only picks up his guitar, smiles encouragingly at Chan, who’s hovering uncertainty between the living room and the kitchen, and he starts strumming despite having just finished uncountable lessons in a row. “ _Cause later when I become addicted to life_ , _when the medication I eat when I’m sick has no effect_ ,” Woojin sings softly, but Chan hears it loud and clear, “ _But I’ll go up, I’ll fly, I’ll head upwards yeah, it’s all up in my mind_.”

 

It’s a song he wrote. He sings the next line, words forming at the corner of his mouth easily and Woojin looks up, smiling through his eyes.

 

“ _I’ll deceive myself this time_.”

 

* * *

 

In the following days, Chan finds himself sitting outside in the living room more and more often, and when Woojin returns, he sits down on the opposite sofa. Wordlessly, Woojin will start to play the guitar, and he sings, and somewhere along the line, it’ll turn into a duet, and nothing changes much, but Chan doesn’t think it could get any better for him, having someone just listen to him and someone to sing with.

 

“Do you wanna go out to eat? There’s nothing left in the fridge,” Woojin says one Friday evening when they’re both at home.

 

Chan looks up, a little disconcerted. He’s just emerged from his room after agonising over an old song of his for hours, and he doesn’t quite know what time it’s supposed to be. “I - what?”

 

“Oh, unless you don’t want to?” Woojin says immediately, looking worried, “Are you sick? Do you need some medicine…” He trails off as Chan shakes his head.

 

“No - I mean - Are we out of food?”

 

“Yeah. Do you wanna go out or order takeout?”

 

Chan’s instinct is to stay home, stay in his room and stay in his comfort zone. He hasn’t stepped out of the apartment for weeks, apart from the one time he was summoned to the company and nearly had a nervous breakdown in his car. “I - Do - Do you wanna go out?” Maybe it’ll do him some good.

 

“Only if you want to,” Woojin says, tone light.

 

Chan looks at Woojin, then at the clock. “In 15 minutes?”

 

“Okay,” Woojin says, then, “I call dibs on the shower first!”

 

“It’s too late!” Chan yells, voice already muffled by the shower door.

 

It’s been ages since he’d heard Chan speak in his regular volume. Woojin doesn’t even care that he has to shower in 2 minutes now.

 

“Where do you wanna go?” Chan asks, voice once again a little quiet in the bustle of the street. It’s six in the evening, and there’s a steady stream of people filling the streets of Seoul, and Woojin can’t help but feel that Chan seems to be hiding behind him, watching the people pass them with an apprehensive gaze.

 

“You like Japanese food right?”

 

“...How did you know?”

 

“You’ve said it last time.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They make their way down the street, following Google’s directions to the nearest Japanese restaurant that has no ratings or reviews whatsoever. “Are you sure we can trust this?” Woojin asks skeptically, as they make another turn into a smaller, quieter street.

 

“Google wouldn’t lie to us,” Chan says, something like optimism in his voice.

 

“Debatable,” Woojin says under his breath as they arrive safely at the restaurant, which is much smaller but also much more charming than the pictures suggested. They step into the restaurant and are led to a small table near the back, lit with overhanging lamps that make Woojin apprehensive.

 

“They won’t fall on you,” Chan says amusedly.

 

“You never know!” Woojin says nervously, but laughs along with Chan, and they spend more time talking to each other then actually eating the food when it comes. Has it always been this easy to talk to Chan? They spend what seems like hours at the restaurant, talking about anything that comes to mind, and Woojin has never seen Chan like this, eyes sparkling and laughter spilling with each word he says like honey. Time doesn’t exist in that moment, and Woojin tries to remember each shining moment like Christmas baubles, transparent with memories he desperately wants to remember.

 

Woojin isn’t just addicted to life alone.

 

That one night isn’t a one-off to be forgotten and reminisced about. Days pass, weeks pass, and it becomes natural for them to go out to eat, even if they have food at home - and it’s _home_ \- and they spend hours lost in conversation. What do they have to talk about? Everything under the stars and the moon.

 

But it doesn’t make Chan’s nights easier.

 

He can spill his heart out and yet they’ll return home and he’ll stare up at the ceiling unseeingly, eyes weighted with sleep but mind startlingly clear. The whole thing remains as stubbornly frustrating as he remembers, being awake more nights than asleep; he recycles through his old routine of working on his songs on the nights he gives up on sleeping as a bad job.

 

It’s on one serene night that Chan can’t sleep and decides to take his work out into the living room for a fresh breath of air. His room feels oddly like a prison at this time of the night, and he pads out softly, switching on the soft night light that casts a mellow glow over the room. Chan spends maybe half an hour on his laptop, fiddling with something before there’s the telltale creak of Woojin’s door opening. Chan _expects_ to see Woojin, but he _doesn’t_ expect to see Woojin with mussed up hair and sleep crinkled face, yawning cutely. It is _not_ the reason why his heart skips a beat.

 

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” Chan asks, closing his laptop and looking over at Woojin worriedly.

 

“No,” Woojin mumbles, then sits down next to Chan, peering at him through bleary eyes. “Okay?”

 

“Yes,” Chan says a little bemusedly.

 

“Then cuddle,” Woojin says with a little pout, opening his arms and letting Chan decide. Chan blinks a few times then slides his arms around Woojin. They fit into each other easily, Chan thinks, then decides not to go down that road of thought. “Try to sleep,” Woojin says, and they topple onto the couch, cuddled tightly into each other.

 

“Oh,” Chan says, a little puff of breath that comes out too long after Woojin says that. It’s an _oh_ of realisation, an _oh_ of gratefulness, an _oh_ of relief. It still takes him forever to fall asleep, mind trapped between bouts of sleepiness then suddenly being alert, but Woojin is still and warm in his arms. There’s a strong surge of emotion just as he falls asleep, and tear tracks make their way down his cheeks.

 

Chan won’t know that Woojin wakes up just a few minutes later, then wipes his cheeks softly, gaze tender, then nestles back down to sleep again. He doesn’t know that.

 

(But if he wakes up with Woojin’s hand on his cheek, then - he has a good idea of what happened.)

 

* * *

 

Chan knows a few things, but the one thing he certainly doesn’t know is how he ended up shopping with Woojin, of all things. “Would this look nice?” Woojin asks, placing an earring against his ear. They’re currently in an accessory store, and while Chan doesn’t know why he’s here, that doesn’t mean he _minds_.

 

“You don’t have a piercing,” Chan points out.

 

“Yeah,” Woojin agrees, “So I’m gonna go get one now.” He puts the star-shaped stud down and selects another one, a simple silver stud. “Do you think this will go well with the dangling one?” He’s holding the other one in his hand, and looks at them in the mirror, head tilted cutely.

 

“Yes,” Chan says, then realises what Woojin just said. “ _What_?” Chan splutters, as Woojin approaches the shopkeeper and asks them about the piercing services they offer. “Are you just going to get a piercing because you feel like it?” He follows Woojin to the back of the shop with a slightly incredulous air.

 

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Woojin replies distractedly as the shopkeeper starts explaining about what he’ll be doing to his ear. There are a few moments where Chan wonders what his life has to come to, then 15 minutes later Woojin has his piercings in and Chan _can’t stop looking_. He also can’t stop touching, but he possesses otherworldly impulse control.

 

“Does - it hurt?” Chan asks, wide eyes on Woojin’s earring and not on the road at all.

 

Woojin pulls Chan away before an oncoming stroller can roll him over. “It’s okay, actually. I think it looks nice.”

 

“Yes,” Chan says in a strangled voice. He’s sure he hasn’t lost his voice.

 

It’s so terribly unfair how good Woojin can look with just a new ear piercing. Chan spends the rest of the walk home staring at the dangling silver arrows and abruptly remembers he has a pair of golden arrows he bought a while back. There is no way Woojin knows about it and it must be a coincidence. Chan overthinks.

 

“You’re going the wrong way, Channie,” Woojin calls. They’re supposed to take a turn to get home, but he’s overshot and still walking straight ahead.

 

“Sorry,” Chan says sheepishly, then doubles back to join Woojin. The sunset casts a warm glow over them, counteracting the cool breeze blowing past.

 

“You’ve been distracted since we came back from the store,” Woojin says, like he doesn’t know why Chan is like that. There’s a small, suppressed smile on his face that indicates he probably knows why and it takes everything in Chan to not burst into flames right there and then.

 

“Yeah,” Chan says, pressing his lips together and looking at anywhere but Woojin. The backs of their hands brush together as they walk, and Chan has a split-second where he wonders if he should just damn all and take Woojin’s hand.

 

“You’re cute,” Woojin says lightly, and then they’re holding hands, fingers interlaced.

 

“Oh,” Chan murmurs, and holds Woojin’s hand tighter. “You’re cuter, you know.”

 

Maybe it’s that moment, or the hundreds of other moments that stay in Chan’s mind, because one day he’s writing something - a song, nonetheless - and, as he reviews it, it’s a love song. A _love song_. Chan hasn’t written a love song since he was in high school. The song also talks about a very specific kind of experience, Chan realises with some rising dread. An experience including late night cuddling, accessory shopping and evening dates poorly concealed as casual dinners.

 

He’s writing a song about Woojin. He’s written a song about Woojin. The realisation comes slightly belatedly, like it had been boiling away in his subconscious for ages before it dawned upon him. He likes Woojin. He likes Woojin a lot.

 

Nothing will change, Chan thinks decisively. Nothing will, because he’s sure nothing will come into fruition as a result of his crush. He’s wrong. He never says the words out loud, but he says it in the way he starts playing the piano again, softly at first, then renditions of what songs he used to play, then improvises when Woojin plays his guitar. He says it in the way when he goes to Woojin when he can’t sleep, and though Woojin’s presence isn’t the antidote to his insomnia, it gives more relief than anything else will. He says it in the way when they look out at the sky from the balcony one day and the stars he sees are the stars in Woojin’s eyes.

 

Chan never says he likes Woojin out loud, but he says it in so many other ways.

 

* * *

 

Kim Woojin is many things. Being a mind reader is definitely not one of them. Yet, for some reason, he’s very, very sure that Chan likes him. It’s a startling notion that he immediately stops thinking about, mainly because _he likes Chan_ and there’s no way it’s mutual. But he can’t help it when Chan does things like smile at him with his eyes crinkled and dimple out, and goes to him when he can’t sleep, and plays his songs on the piano.

 

It’s so utterly unfair how Chan can just - take his heart like that.

 

And - since when did Chan take his heart? Was it between seeing Chan vulnerable and open? Was it when Chan started trusting him? When Chan could tell him he wasn’t okay? He doesn’t know, but he’s fallen for Chan, all of Chan, his cracks and edges and imperfections and he’s weathered through storm after storm together with Chan. Coming to the conclusion that he likes Chan isn’t surprising.

 

“You make me happy,” Woojin tells Chan one day. Chan looks up from the music sheets sprawled on the coffee table, looking slightly disbelieving. “I’m happy when I’m with you.” He means it, and he’s sure he’s got a ridiculously sappy look on his face, but it doesn’t matter, not when Chan looks at him with slightly wide eyes and there’s a small dusting of pink on his cheeks.

 

“Me too,” Chan says softly, twirling his pencil between his fingers. It doesn’t matter to him anymore if he can’t see the stars.

 

It’s two weeks later that Chan approaches Woojin with a request. “There’ll be a showcase going on,” He starts off, “Do - Do you wanna do a duet with me?”

 

“You want _me_ to do a duet with you?” Woojin asks, “Really? I - I don’t have much experience in your kind of area but - but I’ll be honoured,” He finishes, and Chan lights up visibly.

 

They end up staying up late that night, going over songs and deciding if they would use an old one or write a new one. The following days aren’t pretty, and it’s the first time Woojin sees Chan on the verge of breakdowns in his work environment, becoming frustrated when a melody didn’t sound right or a chord sequence was off beat. More often than not, he can’t help Chan, who doesn’t seem to hear anything; they sit it out for ages at a time, until they’ve cooled off and they try again, starting with whatever doesn’t sound right.

 

“It’s not right,” Chan says roughly, scrunching up a blank music sheet, “ _Nothing’s working_ -” He says, gritting his teeth and the all too familiar rise of panic surfaces again, threatening to overwhelm him. The maddening desire to just drop everything and go builds moment by moment, and he feels so assaulted he’s about to -

 

His phone goes off. _I’m coming back with a surprise~~_ it says. It’s from Woojin. _Do you like strawberry or chocolate_?

 

 _Mint_ , Chan replies a few minutes later. Woojin returns with ice cream and a smile that matches the sweetness of the ice cream.

 

It takes them half a month to prepare for the event. The showcase goes well. It’s a new song, but the audience ripples with applause.

 

“For you,” Chan says when they’ve gotten back from the showcase, having declined invitations to go to the afterparty.

 

“For me?” Woojin asks a little curiously, wondering what Chan had prepared.

 

“For you,” Chan confirms, then they’re in his room and he’s playing the piano, and he’s singing softly and he’s looking at Woojin like there are constellations etched across his body. “ _I like you, I tried holding it back b_ _ut I can’t anymore_ ,” Chan sings, and Woojin’s shaking, overcome with emotion, “ _Now I can tell you, I want to love you._ ”

 

The melody echoes endlessly around them, and when Chan finishes, he looks up to find Woojin’s eyes full of moonbright tears. “Thank you,” Woojin says, and his voice breaks.

 

“I should be the one thanking you,” Chan says, and he's smiling though he's crying. He reaches for Woojin, who reaches out at the same time.

 

Their hands are cold, but warmth will come. It always does.

 

(And so the nights are still hard, and Chan still can’t sleep, and a storm surges and rages in him and he can’t just forget about it, but Woojin is there when he wakes up, no matter when or where. Woojin is there.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> you know everytime you read your own work you wanna cringe so hard?? y e s
> 
> Songs referenced:  
> Day6 - I Need Somebody, I Like you  
> Stray Kids - Mixtape #1
> 
> uhh i also have some other works coming up, including a collab with @stay-grandma, and like, other stuff ;;; you know, commitment issues hahahhaahA
> 
> well i hoped you liked the fic!! leave a comment if you liked it!! I love it when you kudo/comment!! you can also find me on tumblr @stay-serenity! sidenote: i'll be opening drabble requests on the 8th of October 2018, so head over to my blog for the requesting guidelines!


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